Creativity and Business:There is little difference between a business person and an artist

I was watching an interview with Sir Richard Branson on CreativeLive and I was struck by him saying that there is little difference between the business person and the artist. The artist starts with a blank canvas and creates a masterpiece and a business person does the same.

When an artist creates they have a vision and they execute on it. The artist has a point of view and shares it with the world. They take a risk to put their perspective forward but they are compelled to do so internally. Every act of creativity involves risk. It may not work.

Sir Richard Branson thinks the same is true of a business person. I’d agree with him when it comes down to entrepreneurs. Unfortunately, the business artists, if I can call them that way, are very few in big corporates and the reason for this is that big corporates try to avoid the risk that something may not work.

For a lot of people in large businesses the art and creative expression has disappeared drowned in business processes and committee decision-making. The result is often a corporate vanilla - something that tastes bland and fails to delight customers.

The business artist, on the other hand, has a vision and a strong drive to execute it. They pay attention to every single detail to ensure that their execution is right. They believe in what they are doing and often, there is a lot at stake for them. Their art is an expression of who they are. The business artist is leading with their point of view. They create new things and accept that they may not work.

Corporates realise that they need to be innovative if they want to survive. So, the key questions that big companies need to answer is how to accept that something may not work? How to allow people to be creative and lead with a strong point of view? How to strike the right balance between protecting the company’s reputation and being bold in the way they serve customers?

I do not have the answers but for me it is critical to create a set of values and underlying purpose that guide people. It may sound cliche but the problem with cliches is that we all know them but rarely do them. Most companies have values but it is rare to see them being fully embedded in the culture, in the unwritten rules how the organisation functions. People need a few guiding principles and they need to see every decision aligned with them. One such guiding principle is the relentless and honest pursuit of servicing their customers and delighting them.